You ask a question that I get asked all the time and it is sort of difficult to answer as these redfoots are variable in color. Also, offically there is only one recognized species of redfoot which is carbonaria. More work on the taxonomy is needed but don't hold your breath.
But having said that, anyone who has dealt with the various forms or 'races' of RF that have been imported over the years can see that there are different populations.
Regardless of what many breeders might say, ALL of the so called cherryhead RFs originate from the state of Bahia, Brazil and possibly Minas Gerais, Brazil.
There are no Bolivian or Paraguayan cherryheads. The myth of such animals is based on misinformation given out by the major importer of these tortoises back in the early 80s.
The redfoots found in both Bolivia and Paraguay are a completely different animal even though some of them might have reddish heads. They can be separated from the eastern Brazil RFs in a number of ways but size is the most obvious. Some of the Bolivia/Paraguay tortoises can grow to be gigantic in size and 17 to 20 inch adults are not at all rare. In fact, my friend Jim Buskirk measured one adult male in Paraguay that was over 24 inches.
The name cherryhead in itself is very misleading. If you have seen very big groups of imported cherryheads the first thing you notice is that their heads can be red, orange, yellowish, coral and even pink. Most are some shade of orange with or without a pinkish tinge to the nasal area. Only really exceptional individuals have the bright red head and eyes that everyone expects them to have based on the stupid name cherryhead. BTW, that name was a marketing ploy used to boost sales of them back when pricelists were only printed on paper and there was no Internet with color photos.
In addition, while many of these RFs have extremely pretty color, most of them do not have much of it. So even if you have a cherryhead with bright red color, it may only have a few red scales on each leg and its head may be mostly grey with that bright red limited to the major head scutes. Of course, the best of these RFs are stunning with lots of color on both the legs and head. But again, these are the exceptions.
The plastron of these RFs is quite distinct from the more northern populations. As hatchlings they have all of the scute seams outlined in dark brown (see photo). As adults most have dark plastrons with varying amounts of ivory or dirty yellow mottling. Some have mostly light plastrons with scattered dark marbling.
But this is always different from the pale yellow with or without the central hourglass marking that northern RFs have.
As regards size it is true that most of the originally imported cherryheads were rather small but appeared to be adult.
This was especially true of males which often showed sexual dimorphism when only about 6 inches total length.
BUT, after a number of years most of these so called 'dwarfs' (another misleading name) grew to be decent sized redfoots. I had a male years ago that grew to be nearly 14 inches. I have a female now who is nearly 13 inches and she just began laying eggs last year... at 10 years of age.
It is true though that these Rfs are smaller than say the above mentioned Bolivian and Paraguayan tortoises. Also, the average Suriname RF is larger too. But the Colombian RFs that I had in the 70s and 80s were about the same size, if not smaller.
